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Simply useful: Product Hunt

I love testing new social networks, community-driven platforms and apps. It is however not always easy to find innovative and useful products in the constant stream of advertised, over-hyped and completely random tools that flood the market. One way to get a daily overview of new things to try out is Product Hunt.

The core service at Product Hunt is the daily e-mail you receive at 7:30 mentioning yesterday’s top hunts. 5 new apps, websites, platforms, online services, stat-ups, gadgets and more ready to be discovered.

Community-driven

Product hunt has some basic, but intuitive social features. The 5 items displayed in the daily e-mail, as well as the 10 items displayed on the website are added and pushed by the community.

Once registered with your Twitter account you can add items and upvote them in the leaderboard. “Makers” of the product can join the discussion for each item and once in a while Product Hunt offers exclusive pre-release access or discounts for specific items.

So far the founders of Product Hunt have been able to keep the platform open for new users, while maintaining a close relationship with the community. You won’t find Facebook or Twitter on top of the leaderboard, but genuinely new and interesting products and services. The choice to limit the leaderboard to 10 items per day and restart the ranking process every day fits the purpose of the website – visit once a day, upvote your favorites, check the e-mail newsletter the next day for the top 5.

The challenge for Product Hunt will be to keep this minimalist design and the engaged users, and avoid adding new features that divert the attention from the community. So far it works, and I can only recommend you to subscribe to their e-mail newsletter: www.producthunt.com

Jerry Weyer

Jerry Weyer co-founded Clement & Weyer Digital Communication Consultants in 2014 and consults European institutions in Luxembourg on social media management. He studied European law at Université Robert Schuman in Strasbourg and at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a founding member of Pirate Party Luxembourg and former Co-Chairman of the Pirate Parties International (PPI).